Pat Croce Was Right, I Feel Great

Pat Croce is a guy who created his own fame and fortune in the Philadelphia, PA USA area as a personal fitness genius. You can read his wikipedia page to learn how he started in physical therapy and eventually became president of our local basketball team, the 76ers. But reading between the lines — or perhaps it’s the fog of my addled recollection — I think he basically invented the world of ‘personal trainers,’ or at least in our area.

Aside: you know how you wish that occasionally someone would demonstrate the proper way to take the money and run instead of working themselves to death, or worse, boring the shit out of all the people who enriched them to the point where you wish they were dead? Well, God bless Pat; he moved to sunny Key West and built his dream, a pirate museum, and even tracked down the shipwrecks of Sir Francis Drake, who invented California (check it out) and created Drake’s Cakes… without which we wouldn’t have devil dogs or yodels. You gotta love history.

But I digress. Anyway, we’re all gonna die of this coronavirus thing so now’s a good time to invoke Pat’s name, for his mantra, “I feel great.” Long before the virus outbreak, I started realizing that I should remind myself when I feel great. Maybe it was after some hockey injury — every player has a few every year, of greater or lesser degree — or unrelated backache or just a cold, but one day I realized that just feeling healthy — not injured or sick — wasn’t getting the appreciation it deserved. Whenever you’re not feeling well, have you ever said to yourself, “when I’m over this, I should remember THAT feeling more,” or words to that effect? Could it be a sentiment of aging, and the impending sense of having fewer such periods to look forward to? Nahhh, I don’t think so. I think that rather, it’s just having been hit on the head enough times for the lesson to sink in: when you feel normal, healthy, just OK, it’s not just OK… YOU FEEL GREAT!

I’ve gotten in the habit of saying it to myself, “Wow, I feel great,” when I hit the pillow at night and realize…

that I no longer have pain from that micro-torn supraspinatus muscle from when I tried working my way up to doing a handstand…

or that I no longer feel that broken rib from hitting the ice at the rink…

or that no longer notice that belt-line hernia from overdoing mason twists…

or that stupid 3-day backache from those erector spinae muscles that freak out just because I bent over too early one morning without getting their permission. Well, excuuuuuuuse me!

Should it take the coronavirus to make us realize or appreciate when we feel great? Doesn’t really matter. But it is an apropos time, whatever the instigation, or whatever your luck is with this stupid thing, to learn Pat’s lesson: when you feel OK, you feel great.

And no, odds are, you’re not gonna die, of coronavirus at least. And if you can make it to 2048, you might not die ever.